Bonaire ’02 – Going Dutch (well nearly) !

by Steven Ball

Bonaire is part of the Dutch Antilles or the ABC Islands, the A and C being Aruba and Curaçao. I had dived in Aruba in 1992, so I had some idea as to what to expect underwater.
There are no direct flights from the UK; I had booked my holiday as a photographic expedition, via Divequest, under the supervision of the very capable underwater photographer Martin Edge. I found myself at Stansted being charged £280 for excess baggage, not a good start to the trip.
I was a single traveller, so I met up with the other members of the trip in Schipol Airport, Amsterdam. It was not long before we were airborne, next stop Bonaire.
The transit from the Airport to Captain Don's Habitat was very quick and efficient. The authorities in Bonaire have realised both the ecological importance of their marine environment and the benefit that this has on tourism from divers. Each and every diver who plans to dive in Bonaire Marine Park is required to undergo a lecture on reef preservation and good diving technique before they are issued with a permit to dive, this permit takes the form of a plastic ID disk that must be attached to your BC at all times.
I was staying at Captain Don's Habitat, a dive resort about 20 minutes drive from the airport. Captain Don's has a policy called ‘diving freedom’, this means quite literally what it says. Residents can collect cylinders and weights and shore dive at anytime, with no further charges. Our holiday package included 2 boat dives a day, this coupled with the freedom to dive the house reef at will, gave us all the time we could wish for underwater.
After a check-out dive on the house reef, we found ourselves on a boat heading for Salt Pier. Bonaire’s other important industry is salt production and it is from Salt Pier that the salt is exported all over the World. The pier is in water deep enough to take ocean going bulk carriers, the great many pier piles forming a spectacular man made forest that plunges into depths exceeding 30 metres. Growing on these piles are some magnificent corals, isolated in clear water, with excellent negative space surrounding them.
When people hear about diving in Bonaire, most say how fantastic the diving at Town Pier is, and I fully concur. You need a special permit to dive the pier, but it is well worth the trouble. Via Captain Dons, who organised the permits for us, we spent three days diving there, which for a relatively small site demonstrates the sheer variety and quantity of life there.
It is also ironic that in one of the most highly acclaimed dive sites in the World, there is also un-told pollution and rubbish under the pier from old car tyres to car batteries. Whilst this adds to the rustic charm of the site, as there are now corals taking hold on the tyres, I’m surprised the local dive community have not got together to clear it. That said, it is still a fully functioning pier serving the principal town of Kralendijk.
The only wreck we dived, was that of the Hilma Hooker, an impounded drug-running ship. When it was impounded it was found to contain several tons of marijuana, which I understand from the locals, was disposed of by the authorities by burning (it must have been some bonfire!). The wreck lies in some 40 metres of water, the currents can be quite strong, so it needs to be dived during slack water, and it was the only decompression dive we did all trip and it was worth it, as we were only going to get one chance to dive it.
The problem with only having one dive on a site, is that you don’t get a second chance if things don’t go as planned. I had a problem with my strobe firing, and this carefully set up shot should show the colour in the coral, as if lit by the divers torch. Alas, these things happen when you mix depth, electronics and a slightly narked diver at 40 metres. I wish we had more chances to dive the site, as it offered some excellent opportunities and had great potential, but needed knowledge and planning.
We had the benefit of E6 processing on site, so each day we could put our films in at the end of the final dive and that night have our images returned for evaluation and critique by Martin Edge. The benefit of this was fantastic and being able, if required, to go out the following day and try and re-capture the image was superb.
We only did one night dive, this was on the house reef, which we were very familiar with from our daytime diving. This enabled us to feel very at ease with the geography of the site and I discovered an inquisitive spotted moray. I spent along time on this subject, as I had not seen many during the rest of the trip.
Bonaire is one of those diving locations that have both fantastic wide angle and macro opportunities. With the right dive guides and by using Captain Don's Habitat as a base, all the elements fell into place. This makes for a relaxing trip as well as a very productive photographic one. The ratio of good quality images to total film used was superb.

This report originally posted on Steven’s website: www.stevenball.co.uk

All Copyright – Steven Ball 2002, unless otherwise shown.

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